YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–The Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) held its first annual session for the year 2001 at the UN Headquarters on January 22. Last May–Armenia was elected member of the UNICEF Executive Board–having won the elections over Azerbaijan with an overwhelming majority of votes. The executive Board consists of 36 countries–equitably representing all geographic regions of the world.
The first meeting began with the election of Movses Abelian as President of the Executive Body for the year 2001. The candidature of Ambassador Abelian was supported by the Group of Eastern European Countries–to which Armenia is a member.
After the election Ambassador Abelian made a statement in which he outlined the main principles of his forthcoming activities as President of the Executive Board–as well as–shared his vision of this important international organization–whose noble mission is to make life easier for millions of deprived children worldwide. He stressed that he feels particularly honored to have been elected to the presidency of the Executive Board in a year when the United Nations is preparing to hold a General Assembly Special Session on children–to be held in September 2001.
At the same meeting–Ambassador Abelian was also elected member of the UNESCO/UNICEF Joint Committee for education.